Susanna Reid: ‘I am not oppressed by Piers. I am loath to say it, but he’s a genius’

Shall we just eat in the staff canteen? Otherwise we have to do the walk of shame over to Soho House and there might be paparazzi...” It’s just gone 10am and I’m meeting Susanna Reid at the ITV studios in White City, West London. Rather than lavishly indulge in eggs Florentine, for me, or buckwheat granola, perhaps, for her (Reid is a vegetarian, something her Good Morning Britain cohost Piers “Meat Feast” Morgan never lets her forget), we queue up at the studio café and order what has to be one of the driest breakfasts I have ever eaten. This isn’t a complaint so much as an observation. Reid and I order the same three items, all of which get shovelled onto a paper plate with a side of French’s mustard: nuked veggie sausage (so charred it could only have been cooked using one of Elon Musk’s Falcon rockets) and a couple of granite-hard hash browns that, if necessary, could be used to clamp one of the Aston Martins Morgan likes to pootle about in. Stabbing my wooden fork into the pork-substitute “log”, it snaps in two. Crack! Reid gets the giggles.

Would you get up in the middle of the night to sit two inches from Piers Morgan’s face every morning? (Don’t @ me.) While the rest of us are thinking about our second cappuccino, Reid has been awake since 3am, going live on ITV at 6am. This means she suffers from a strange form of landlocked jet lag; she is always three hours ahead of the rest of us. Her wits are in London, sure, but her body and appetite are in Riyadh. By 10am – and off-air – she’s enervated and starving. “Being on TV with Piers is like being hooked up to an espresso IV drip; the cortisone levels are insane.”

I managed to catch a few episodes of GMB this week, I tell her. Not that you need to actually watch the show to know what’s been debated: Morgan’s rampant tweeting takes care of that. Enraged, humoured or otherwise moved, what “Pusanna” (no?) discuss can all too often steer national debate. Papoosegate? Veganuary? That Gillette ad? To everyone else in journalism they are maddeningly successful.

'I don’t agree he should be left to chew these people up and spit them out like one of his rare steaks'

So how mad does Morgan really make Reid? “Oh, really mad. He’s pushed me to get more opinionated. Critics say I take the opposite side just to wind him up. It’s not true. I take the opposite side because I don’t agree. I also feel a responsibility to speak out for those who aren’t in the studio to defend themselves against his obnoxious rants. I don’t agree he should be left to chew these people up and spit them out like one of his rare steaks. Piers too needs to be held to account for what he says.”

If Reid wasn’t teetotal it could push a woman over the edge, I say. “Quite! He makes not drinking harder.” Reid gave up alcohol last year after a particularly heavy jaunt to Ibiza with TV’s Judge Rinder. “I can’t say what happened exactly, as it’s too personal, but we went big. I do miss the alcohol at times. You know, you’re at the Groucho Club, there’s a party, someone brings the shots and you’re just... whoo! I love the bacchanalia of it all, that rush of hedonism and escape. But then there’s the shame. I’ve had some of my best worst moments after a drink, but I don’t miss the hangxiety.”

Yesterday on GMB, Morgan and Reid grilled Meghan Markle’s father, who criticised his daughter and the royal family for freezing him out. I tell her it felt a little exploitative, not least of a young woman going through a very public pregnancy. “Really? I don’t think what we did was any more stressful than any other story out there. I don’t think we are sacrificing Meghan’s wellbeing for the sake of viewing figures. I think it’s heartbreaking. But Meghan signed up for this, and that’s the goldfish-bowl life that she now lives. It’s the family she chose.”

How doesn’t she let Morgan’s wry, toe-curling innuendo trigger her? “You have to understand his sense of humour. If I feel it’s too much I’ll say, ‘Pipe down, grandad!’ or if he’s being pathetically ignorant on a no deal Brexit. I’ve had to get stronger. But I don’t think you see a browbeaten woman next to him; you see someone who gives as good as she gets. I am not oppressed by Piers. If anything, his provocation has produced a better interaction between us. I am loath to say it, but he’s a genius. He has emboldened me and empowered me.”

If Reid considers herself an equal, I wonder if she thinks their pay is equal? They are cohosts, after all. “I don’t know how much Piers is paid.” Yes, but should you be paid the same? “I feel we should be paid what we are worth.” And so are you worth the same amount of money? “Well, that is a different question. I trust ITV to pay me what I should be paid.” If Reid found out Piers was paid double what she was paid, would that shock her? Hurt her? A long silence follows. “I don’t have an emotional investment in it. I wouldn’t react in that way, no.” And would Reid miss Morgan if he left suddenly? If man flu wiped him out (again)? “There is only one Piers Morgan. But no one is completely irreplaceable, no matter who they are.”

We shake hands and say our goodbyes, but as I am packing up Reid returns, clutching her phone. “Jonathan, look at this. That interview with Meghan Markle’s father? Highest ever ratings for us yesterday...” And with that, Reid swivels on her heel and flashes that megawatt breakfast-TV smile, calling out as she walks off, “Just thought you’d like to know.” Now I know how you feel, Piers: utterly schooled.

Television Centre, 101 Wood Lane, London W12. Good Morning Britain is on weekdays on ITV at 6am.